


Come the Autumn, I Will Wait For Thee

by Zagzagael



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5046775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zagzagael/pseuds/Zagzagael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Indian Summer, Gypsy Summer, Poorman's Summer. Extra days of summertime after the Equinox.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come the Autumn, I Will Wait For Thee

_Poorman’s Summer_ , they called it. And she was reveling in it. The trees had begun to deepen, redden, and when she woke, sleeping off the headache of a hundred beer weekend, all the leaves were gold, as though the forest had been gilded. The grasses had been flattened by a killing frost, and she wondered that he had not come for her in the night. She had gotten out of the City, driving up the winding fishing line of river, into the mountains to search out a meadow. To wait for him.

She couldn’t rouse interest in her girls before she left. They were burnt out, dozing in boy shorts and crop tops, their beautiful faces smudged with painted stripes and circles. They didn’t want to let go of the heat in their veins and the cement sidewalks still promised warm nights, sweaty dance floors and bars with doors propped open. She understood and kissed them all on their mouths, their lips as soft as petals.

A yellow VW beetle, a hothouse sunflower in the dashboard vase, its happy face turning towards her. On the passenger seat was a bedroll and a daypack with wine and cheese and a loaf of fresh bread. She didn’t know how long the warm autumn was meant to last, but she wasn’t hungry for food anymore. Instead, she wanted her teeth in his flesh, she could taste the memory of the sharp tartness of him on her tongue.

She was wearing a pomegranate-red babydoll dress, her legs and feet bare, but somewhere in the detritus of the back seat were leggings and a pair of battered Uggs.

She found the perfect spot as though she had punched the destination into her iPhone. She hadn’t, of course. The first afternoon she winded herself running the perimeter of the treeline. That night she sat crosslegged on the ground and tried to meditate on the waxing moon. Nearly full. She thought about her mother and wished she had made more time for her over the long hot months of summer.

The next day she hiked down to the river and practiced skipping rocks. The water was quiet. In the shallows, the fish hung suspended just beneath the surface and she squinted and saw them as cadavers, drifting in the ebbing tide.

That night she lay on her back on a patch of squaw carpet and counted all the stars in this universe and the one beyond.

She climbed a tree early in the morning, to watch the earth wake up with the sun, then she straddled a limb and pressed her back against the trunk and marveled at how lonely she was growing.

Later, she curled onto her side, on the bare dirt, and felt how sleepy the earth was. She sang it a lullaby and made herself cry. Her tears dripped off her face and she woke in the morning with mud dried onto her skin. She skipped down to the river to wash her face, but walked slowly back to the clearing. She missed him. Terribly.

In the very heart of the meadow, she crouched and watched the sun setting and the moon rising, felt her body tipping as the earth turned beneath her soles. She hugged her knees to her chest and whispered his name. She heard the dogs barking and smiled knowingly, joyfully into her palms. Breathing deeply she filled her lungs with open air, preparing for the descent.

At last, at last, he was coming to take her home.


End file.
